Human Reset; Creative Process; Blue Bell; Basketball

WARNING: Unlike yesterday, this post will not be deep, religious, emotional, or anything except random ramblings. So if that's not your thing, come back tomorrow. Apparently when I blog every day, I'm full of surprises. Who knew?

(I bet today's post totally gets more comments--at least on Facebook--than this one. That's okay. Sometimes it's hard to know what to say when someone gets really up close and personal with the Bible.)

I woke up with sinus pressure in my head and a scratchy throat. By the time I dropped both kids off at school--a circuitous route that makes me feel like an Uber driver--and plopped down on the couch, I realized my throat actually hurt and I was achy and tired all over. Getting off the couch was not going to happen that day...or at least only for small intervals, such as going to the bathroom or fetching something to eat. My body said, "We are certainly not going to drive for 45 minutes to an office to sit in a less-comfortable position, when there is nothing urgent to accomplish there."

I've always believed I should listen to my body, so I called my boss husband and told him I wasn't coming in. He made the appropriate sympathetic noises and told me to rest.

I read blogs for about an hour (I'm behind on my blog reading since I took a week off for anxiety, and doesn't it make me seem like such a nerd that I feel like I'm "getting behind" on entertainment. I think of it as "Internet homework" and a full DVR makes me feel the same way). Then I realized my head was hurting worse, but I couldn't take a nap because I felt too gross. I decided to take a shower because my mother always said when I felt yucky, "Take a shower and eat something." She still says that, and I've found that (along with taking a nap and medicine if necessary) it's the human equivalent to turning your electric device off and on again. Solves at least 75% of my problems (it would be 95% except I sometimes can't sleep).

Anyway, I told you yesterday that I sang in the shower and got the idea for yesterday's post, yada yada yada. Actually, it was not like an idea just peacefully came into my brain and I though, "Huh, yeah, that's interesting. Maybe I'll write about that," and I continued with my shower like a normal person. 

Yeah, no. (No one ever said I was normal, anyway.) It felt like the top of my head opened up and something outside me downloaded into my brain almost faster than I could keep up with. Notice I said it felt like that--I am not actually delusional enough to believe that my ideas came Directly From God. But it felt like it was not coming from me at all, which I hear is very common among creative types. You'll be feeling uninspired, do your daily word count, then stomp off moodily to do something else (like take a shower) and WHOOP, there it is. I believe Anne Lamott said it was incredibly similar to amoebic dysentery. It really felt that urgent that I get to a computer. In this case I was speaking the words out loud, which made me glad I was alone. I was just talking, saying all these things I'd never thought of before, with tears leaking out of my eyes because once I get emotional I can't stop crying, and then I stopped talking and said, "Oh God, oh God, please don't let me forget this, don't let me forget this." And I rushed through the rest of my shower and barely dried off so I could run to the computer and I didn't forget it and the rest came out easily as well, which is hardly ever the case with writing, in my experience (unless it's not any good, and/or you're plagiarizing.)

Maybe it was also like giving birth. Or there was this episode of "Dr. Who..." 

You know what, I'm going to stop with these weird metaphors. (You're welcome.) It was just really interesting to see my creative process working again. Anne Lamott also says that the muse doesn't show up unless YOU show up every day whether you feel inspired or not. This hasn't happened in YEARS, probably because I've never committed fully to writing every day. Oh, I've made promises to myself, but somehow making a promise to other people who claim to enjoy reading my words is quite different. Maybe I'll keep blogging every day for forever and ever.

MUAHAHAHAHA!

Okay, I feel better now. Quite possibly because I have again tasted manna from heaven, aka the nectar of the gods, aka Blue Bell ice cream. If you've never tasted it because you don't live close enough to Brenham, Texas, then I'm sorry and I hope you get to try it someday, sooner rather than later. Why did I say "again?" Well, everybody down here knows that Blue Bell voluntarily shut down its plants after an outbreak of listeria hospitalized 12 people and 4 of those died. It was a very sad and scary time. It seemed that the "little creamery in Brenham" would go out of business and then, judging from the ravings in my Facebook feed, life would not be worth living.

Well, Blue Bell arrived back in North Texas on Nov. 2 and FB was full of 1) Halloween candy and 2) Blue Bell cartons with the familiar gold rim. I didn't go to the store because 1) I had already done my grocery shopping the night before and I don't go to the store any more than I am forced to; and 2) I prefer to wait until a craze quietens down--one might almost say the trend becomes passe`--before reluctantly getting on the bandwagon 3) There was still Halloween candy in the house. 

Which is why when the only thing that sounded good with my sore throat was ice cream, I called my darling husband and asked him to stop by CVS for some Sudafed. "Oh, and if they have some Blue Bell, you could get some of that," I said nonchalantly, pretending my mouth wasn't full of saliva.

He's been married to me for 18 1/2 years, so this is not his first rodeo, honey. This is what he came home with:

Ohhhhhh yeaaaahhhh. Note that two of the flavors are chocolate.

Finally (because it is now three hours since I started this post and was interrupted and am now remembering that I woke up at 4 a.m. because my throat hurt), C had some exciting news today. After four days of tryouts, she made the basketball team!!! Well, one of them. We don't know if she's on the A, B, or C team, but it really doesn't matter. 85 girls tried out and only 30 made it. I am so proud of her and excited to cheer her on in her first middle school sport (cross country doesn't really count since she never got to run in a meet). 

L starts on a select (as opposed to recreational) team next week. More thoughts on that later. At first I thought I would get a T-shirt with her school name on it, but maybe I'll get one that says "Basketball Mom" and cover all my bases.

Although if I keep eating all this Blue Bell, I'm gonna need a larger size.

The Prodigal Father and the Elder Brother

While browsing on FB, I came across the video below and had this to say about it:

 

I seriously have tears in my eyes and my goosebumps have goosebumps after listening to one of my favorite singers (Dan Dean of Phillips, Craig & Dean) sing one of my favorite songs ("When God Ran," originally by Benny Hester). It perfectly encapsulates the story of the Prodigal Son as related by my pastor, Tommy Brandon, last Sunday at Calvary Church of South Fort Worth. 

Oh, God's amazing grace! I am just now beginning to truly understand it. To anyone wondering if you have gone too far to come back to God, please watch this video and know that there is no place too far for His grace to reach you. All you have to do is turn your heart toward home, and your Heavenly Father will run to meet you on that road.

Then a little later I began singing the song again (in the shower, and I'm sorry if that's TMI, but on this here Hairline Fracture blog, we tells it like it is) and crying a little, and then a lot. And I asked myself, "Why am I feeling this song so deeply? I know it's because I'm on a journey of experiencing God's grace at a deeper level than ever before, but...I'm not the Prodigal Son. Or the Prodigal Daughter." 

To give you some context, I accepted Jesus into my heart when I was sitting on my mother's lap at about five years old. I did feel a deep conviction and began to cry as the altar song was being sung, and my mom asked me if I wanted her to pray with me, and I did. And from that day until this, I have never intentionally walked away from God. 

I don't think that makes me better than anyone else. I know that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23, NKJV). I believe that I am just as much of a sinner as the worst murderer on the face of the earth. And yet...on some level, I have never truly identified with the stories of the Prodigal Son, the lost sheep, or the lost coin, because I never truly felt lost. I never left.

And then it hit me. I never left.

So in this story, that makes me...the elder brother?

That doesn't make sense, I thought. When I hear the song, I'm imagining myself as the Prodigal, seeing the Father run to me, feeling Him pull me into His arms, holding my head to His chest, lifting my face, wiping the tears from my eyes, and most of all, hearing Him say, "Child, do you know I still love you?" The elder brother didn't experience any of that, so why was it speaking so powerfully to me in a way that goes beyond mere emotional empathy?

Here is how Jesus says the elder brother reacted when he heard the news that his younger brother had returned after wasting his inheritance and then how his father had responded:

 ²⁸ “The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, ²⁹ but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. ³⁰ Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’" (Luke 15:28-30, NLT).

All of my life I have heard that Jesus was condemning the reaction of the elder brother who was so mean-spirited that he refused to be glad that his own brother had come home alive. The elder brother represents the believers like me, like the ninety and nine sheep, who had never left, while of course God is the Father who runs to welcome home the lost sinner who has wasted all the precious gifts he was given, but who is far more precious in his father's eyes than the inheritance he lost. 

I have heard it pointed out that because "prodigal" means "spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant," the story should really be called "The Prodigal Father." What earthly father would be so extravagant as to welcome that idiotic boy home without at least mentioning what he'd done?

"So...what'd you bring back?...Nothing? What, I'm sorry--I thought you actually said you brought home NOTHING out of the HALF of everything I own..." [Closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.] "Okay. Okay. I'm going to need a minute. Okay, I've already ordered the fatted calf and told everybody we're celebrating, so I'm going to have to go through with that. But TOMORROW, buster, you and I are going to have a SERIOUS talk about how you can work off this debt!"

No WONDER I have trouble understanding the heart of my Father in Heaven--I get annoyed when my 12-year-old doesn't bring home change from the $20 I gave her to hang out at the mall for a couple of hours! In my own nature, I am so stingy, so close-fisted...and not just about money.

Left to my own nature, I am the elder brother.

Because--and this is a thing I don't think I have ever heard anyone say before--I think the elder brother's reaction is actually pretty relatable to most of us, if we think about it. Most of us are a lot more like him than we're like the younger wastrel. We've completed whatever schooling was available to us, gotten legitimate jobs and worked hard at them, tried to treat others right and be friendly and tip well and just generally be Good People.

Until that pesky younger brother shows back up and our Father goes all out CRYING for joy and falling on that STUPID IDIOT'S neck and throwing a huge PARTY for him. When all the time we were RIGHT HERE providing unpaid labor and not saying a WORD even when that JERK basically said he wanted Dad to be DEAD so he could go ahead and take his inheritance...and Dad GAVE it to him! Oh no, we kept our mouths shut like good little boys and girls and let him go, thinking, "Goodbye and good riddance." But now that he's back with nothing but the filthy rags he's wearing and smelling like PIGS, Dad's all, "Oh, hooray, Elder, your brother's back, let's waste some MORE money on him!" It just proves what I KNEW all along: DAD'S ALWAYS LOVED HIM MORE.

(It's possible that the elder brother in my imagination uses a lot of EMPHASIS when he's MAD, kind of like [ahem] someone else I know.)

This is the truth that hit me like a ton of bricks: the elder brother was actually not mad as much about the money, as he was jealous for the father's love.

He thought that his father's generosity toward his brother meant that his father loved his brother more. But as Jesus said, nothing could be farther from the truth! Unlike the teachings I've always heard, the father doesn't condemn his elder son; he begs him to understand. He tries to affirm his son and reassure him that the father's love has always been his.


³¹ “His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours.'" (Luke 15:31, NLT).

How would this story have been different if the elder brother had admitted to himself that the real problem was that he hadn't left his father's home in body...but he had never believed he deserved to live there?

He had stayed in the fields and worked, believing way down deep inside that he HAD to work to earn his father's love...but his eyes had followed his younger brother as he went on his merry way, and possibly he'd had the thought flash through his mind, "Now Dad will HAVE to see that I'm better than him. He'll HAVE to love me more."

And when his father ran toward his prodigal younger brother, it exploded that sordid little belief, and he felt angry and hopeless and unloved. 

When the truth was that if the elder brother had ever asked, the prodigal father would certainly have given him anything he wanted to throw a party. 

But he never asked. He assumed that if the father loved him, he'd just provide things like he had for the spoiled baby of the family. Except...that isn't accurate either. The younger brother asked, so the father gave him what he asked for. The father gave, grieving all the time that the younger son valued his money more than his relationship with his father. 

Whereas the elder brother had the chance to experience the depth of the father's unconditional love every single day...but he didn't believe it was his, and so he worked and slaved and stewed and felt unworthy and unloved. He never asked.

What if, I asked myself, just what if the elder brother had fallen into his father's arms and sobbed out all his insecurities and fears? What if he'd let his father hold his head to his chest, let his father lift his head, let his father wipe the tears from his eyes, let himself hear, "Son, do you know I've always loved you?"

Why then, I realized, it would probably feel a lot like I was feeling at this very moment.


“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" (Matthew 7:7-11, NKJV)

Timehopping

Yesterday, Bibliomama made a statement that resonated with me.

"With so much of parenting, when you lose something you almost always get something equally (but differently) awesome in return."

I found this extremely encouraging. And when I thought more about it, I found it to be true of my experience as well. Sure, I miss (some of) those baby, toddler, and preschool days. 

I started looking at the oldest posts on this blog and became verklempt. Talk among yourselves. (Sorry if you're too young to get that. Look it up on YouTube.)

I mean, who wouldn't miss this?

Or this?

And here is a post that made me tear up, from November 2007 :

We’re in the middle of a language explosion around here. Mr. Blue’s vocabulary is expanding--seemingly like the universe, at an ever-increasing rate. At night Justin and I recount the things the words he’s spoken for the first time: “He said ‘medicine,’ didn’t he?” “Well, actually it was more like ‘medsih,’ but yeah.” He says simple sentences now, like “I walk stairs,” or “Mamaw go bye-bye.” With each addition to his vocabulary, my heart swells with pride, like he’s the first kid who ever learned to talk. Now the words are coming out so fast, I find myself thinking, “When did he learn to say that?”
 

Like every kid, though, he has his own unique names for some things. He calls his toothbrush his “Nemo,” even though he has no idea that’s what the decorative fish on it is named. The blanket he sleeps with is, inexplicably, an “otay.” Anything heart-shaped is a “vah-vah,” and until this week he called a light that can be switched on a “dawdaw.” Monday night Justin told me Mr. Blue said “light” instead, as he turned off the one in his room. (It seems so strange that we can pin down the exact day he started calling it a light.) I felt the pang that I’m already familiar with from Miss Pink’s toddler years. You know they have to learn the real word, but the nonsense one is so cute, you hate to see it go. 

Mostly, though, I’m happy to be able to communicate with him the way I communicate best—with words. Of course I loved my children's first few months, but sometimes it was frustrating that the screaming bundle couldn’t just tell me what she or he wanted (and I’d have to haul my shirt up and see if that was it. Again.) Plus, I like newborns best when they aren’t doing anything; if they’re calm and still, it’s a good thing. Any communication from a tiny infant is an urgent call to action. Now Mr. Blue can run around pointing at things, identifying them, and having a conversation with me. “Oh! Pane! [pointing at sky]. Bird. Fower. Want swing, Mama. Where juice? Tank oo. Oh, poopy” (not always accurate, but still helpful). 

Then I chase him down (not an easy task), hold him tight, and whisper, “Stay like this. Stay just like this, and don’t ever change.”

Pease?

WEEP. Of course he didn't obey; no child except Peter Pan ever has. But now we have such fun conversations. Here's one we had this week:

L: Tuesday night is my least favorite night of the week.

Me: Oh, really? Why's that?

L: Well, Monday is Monday Night Football, and Wednesday night is church, so that's good. And then there's Thursday Night Football, I get to stay up later on Friday night, and there's more football on Saturday and Sunday. Tuesday night is the only night when nothing really happens.

Me: What a tragedy.

And I also find my daughter incredibly amusing. Tonight when we were watching "The Voice" she declared, "He killed it! It's so dead, it's already decaying!"

I remember when I was pregnant with C, Justin and I would talk about what his or her (we didn't find out the sex in advance) personality was going to be like. We were sure this baby would come into the world with some traits hardwired into the system. Sure enough, both kids brought their own personalities into the world, and although they have changed somewhat as they grew, I loved them then, and as they get older, I keep falling in love all over again with the people they are becoming. 

My Adventure with Manicures

Let it be a lesson to me not to promise a second part to a story right away. Here is Part I.  I actually wrote this on October 19, so there is an update at the end.

All of that is to give some background to what I'm about to say. Until about five years ago I had never visited a nail salon. No, not even for my wedding.

I'll pause to let the beauty gurus get their breath back.

I really regret not having my nails done for my wedding, though. I've been a nail biter/cuticle picker since way back, and my nails look horrible in the pictures, which wouldn't be so bad except that I inexplicably chose a close-up of our hands for a full page in the album. When I see that picture, I don't see the rings it's supposed to showcase; I see my short, not-pretty-at all nails. At least I had put on some clear polish, but it didn't help much.

So why didn't I get a manicure or pedicure before my wedding? It wasn't money (which WAS the reason I didn't go to the nail salon in the years since). In 1997 I had more discretionary income than I've ever had: I had my first full-time job, no car payment, and I was living at home because I was getting married in six months. I was supposed to pay my parents an absurdly low amount of rent but most of the time they forgot to collect it. I did buy my own wedding dress to compensate (big whoop.)

I guess I just didn't have "get my nails done" on my radar. Probably a few people I knew did, but no one I was really close to. No one seemed surprised that I wasn't getting my heels sanded and fingers and toes painted, let alone that I didn't have a professional hairdresser or makeup artist working on me.

And yet! I felt as beautiful as a Disney princess on the big day. My cousin worked magic on my hair, and an ecstatic glow seems to substitute just fine for a professional makeup job. So my advice to young brides is: don't believe the hype. You don't HAVE to spend a ton of money on beautifying yourself. Although if you don't have a cousin who is amazing at fixing hair--not just their own hair, but YOUR hair--then do spend the money to go to a salon. And definitely get your nails done while you're there, if you think you're going to have a picture taken of your hands.

The point of all this is to say that I finally treated myself to a manicure. At forty years old, I am tired of having nails bitten down to the quick and bleeding cuticles. I thought, "Hey, if my nails look pretty, I might not bite them!"

It only took me 25 years to think of this solution.

A month ago I got a gel manicure when I went in for a pedicure, and I loved the results. I forgot to take a picture, but they were pretty. I got a peachy-nude color, but you could tell I'd had a manicure. And I did not bite my nails or yank off a hangnail EVEN ONCE. So my nails grew and I can TAP on things and scratching is amazing.

The gel manicure was very durable, too. A regular manicure would have chipped in about 10 seconds on me, because I'm used to scraping things up with my nails, etc. But the gel held up for almost three weeks.


Here is what the second gel manicure looked like (as of Oct. 19).

I got a whitish polish with a shimmer in it, although the shimmer doesn't show here. I felt very on-trend. Are whitish nails on-trend? I've seen some cool ladies wearing it, so it doesn't matter what the magazines say. I still love the gel and the filing and everything that makes my nails pretty. But this nail tech wasn't as good as the last one. On several nails there was too much polish, even though she kept using her own nails to try to remove excess on the edge. Then when they dried there is no removing that polish. It looked okay in the shop, plus I'm the kind of person who says something's fine because I don't want to hurt their feelings. But outside I saw that the nails weren't perfect the way they were before. If it happens again I will tell the tech to redo them. I promise.

But they are at least okay (the picture isn't great) and my nails are still unbitten.

UPDATE: I am having the polish taken off today, and not getting another manicure right now. It would be too hard on my budget to maintain them even every couple of weeks. I hate the way the polish looks when it's growing out but I haven't had time to go to the salon till today, and the gel polish really won't budge with regular nail polish remover. The current look isn't pretty.

Ugh, what is wrong with my hand? Look at that swollen-looking forefinger and those wrinkles! Forget it, I'm not retaking the picture, it took too long to take with one hand in the first place.

I also just looked up the potential problems with gel manicures according to my Internet doctor, Web MD. Yikes. Besides the whole skin cancer risk from the lights, I don't want my nails to peel off in layers.

And before anyone suggests that I just do an at-home manicure, let me just say that when I do that, it looks like a two-year-old did it.

Sigh. It was nice while it lasted. Thank goodness for pedicures.

My First NaBloPoMo (Say That Five Times Fast)

So tonight I visited my feed reader for the first time in a week and in a post by the awesome Bibliomama, I realized it is NaBloPoMo. That sounds like gibberish, but it actually stands for National Blog Posting Month. It began as a reaction to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and basically it just means you post on your blog every day of the month. Even a picture counts. 

Well. I've been meaning to write more consistently for--oh, about ten years now. Surely I can do this for a month. 

But now it is 10:31 p.m. and my husband is making noises about going to bed and I really have nothing interesting to write about. 

I know--I will show you pictures of my kids in their Halloween costumes. 

 If you spend any time with an elementary-school aged child, you know that this is a Minecraft character. Like me, that might be all you know. FYI, this is a Minecraft skeleton. No, I don't know why a skeleton in Minecraft doesn't look anything like an actual skeleton, nor why a bow is its weapon of choice. 

To confess my total lameness, I must admit I did not make this. My son kept saying he wanted to borrow this costume, which his friend wore last year. It wouldn't be that difficult to make, but it would involve buying clothes...and paint...and finding a box... GAAAAHHH IT'S TOO HAAAAARD. So the week before Halloween I asked the other mom and she very graciously allowed L to borrow it. This year she made her son a Minecraft zombie costume, which is totally different except that it also has a box head and was painted in small colored squares. I solemnly swear that I will not ask to borrow the Minecraft zombie next year.

Here is C as the FaceTime app. You can't read it very well in this picture, but it says "Time" across her face. (Why yes, she loves puns.) She and her dad decorated the sweatshirt, which I think looks practically professionally done even though they just drew the app onto iron-on material. I say "just" like that meant it was quick and easy. At one point, I think I heard my husband say something about making sure the proportions of the drawing exactly matched the app. Hey, I think I know who can make L's costume next year!

And now it is 10:50 p.m. and I am tired but pleased that I have completed my first post for NaBloPoMo.

Tales of a Former Tomboy

I've never been particularly "girly" in my style. Even as a toddler, when even babies were dressed up for church in frilly dresses with petticoats underneath that made the skirts stick out horizontally, my mom didn't dress me as "frou-frou" as other little girls (that's her phrase). She's said that my legs were so thin, they looked pitiful underneath those voluminous skirts. Someday maybe I'll borrow her photo albums and get to scanning. I have a lot of Throwback Thursdays to catch up on.

This should give you the idea. Doesn't it make you itchy?

For much of my childhood, I was a tomboy who practically lived outside. This is very difficult for me to believe now, but it's true. I rode my bike every day after school, made endless mud pies, and climbed every tree at my grandparents' house (our trees didn't have branches close enough to the ground for me to climb, much to my disappointment.) I did all these things while wearing skirts and culottes because a) that was our school uniform and b) our church at that time believed that women should wear only skirts and dresses. So no truly tomboyish clothes for me.

This is EXACTLY what they looked like, even the navy blue color. I find them hideous.

I had no problems pursuing my interests, though. My parents never told me not to get dirty or not to climb things because I was wearing a skirt (hence the culottes.) I always did like pretty clothes for dressing up, though. I am a romantic through and through, and what could be prettier than the Disney princesses' ball gowns? You can imagine how much I loved Ariel and Belle compared to the earlier princesses: a spunky redhead and a bookworm who ALSO wear ball gowns? My kind of girls! But that's another post for another day.

Okay, this post has gotten way too long. I'll finish the story tomorrow.

I'd like to hear from y'all. Are you "girly" or not? Has your style changed since you grew up, or do you have basically the same preferences you had as a girl?

Book Review: Dear Mr. Knightley

Well, it finally happened. I read a Christian novel that I liked. And that didn't make me cringe (not even once) due to bad writing or heavy-handed inclusion of Christianity. 

To tell you the truth, I had completely forgotten that Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay is Christian fiction. I bought it as an e-book from BookBub, a service that alerts readers to discounted e-books. Initially it caught my attention because the title refers to one of Jane Austen's heroes, and I like Austen's Mr. Knightley very much. Still, I didn't expect much from the book since I've encountered quite a bit of Austen-inspired fiction, and most of it is as dismal as the Christian fiction I dislike.

Dear Mr. Knightley is an epistolary novel, meaning it is written as a series of letters. In this case, almost all of the letters are written by the main character, Samantha Moore, a survivor of the foster care system who got through the hard times by escaping into classic novels, especially those of Jane Austen. After college, Sam receives the opportunity to attend journalism school through a grant from an anonymous donor who asks only that she write regular letters to him to keep him apprised of her progress. The mysterious benefactor uses the synonym of "George Knightley."

The setup may be contrived, but Reay captures Sam's personality perfectly. The lonely young woman pours her heart out onto the page as she would a journal, only with more dialogue and better pacing. In many ways, the book reminded me of two other favorite epistolary novels: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Daddy Long Legs. While a reader of classic literature will surely love the many allusions to works by Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte (among others), those who haven't read those books can still enjoy this one. 

The spiritual part of the book is deeply felt and ingrained in the theme of redemption, grace, and forgiveness--yet Reay never slathers it on thick or makes her characters too good to be true. I take it back--I now read Christian fiction, at least if it's written by Katherine Reay.